1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of chip manufacturing process, and is more particularly to fabrication with one or more germanium layers.
2. Description of Related Art
The convergence of silicon and optical fabrication processes presents an attractive manufacturing solution by leveraging the use of a standard CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) manufacturing process. Some optical companies have selected III-V semiconductors to provide high detection efficiency, but this selection poses difficult challenges in incorporating a III-V material in a standard CMOS technology. For additional background information on SiGe structures, the reader is referred to “Metal-semiconductor-metal near-infrared light detector based on epitaxial Ge/Si”, by L. Colace et al. and G. Capellini et al., Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 72, No. 24, pp. 3175-3177.
Accordingly, it is desirable to incorporate optical telecommunication systems within a standard CMOS process.